


Ocean Grown

by JustGettingBy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Backstory, Character Study, M/M, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 23:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29497692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustGettingBy/pseuds/JustGettingBy
Summary: The Five Times Jean celebrates his birthday and the one time he celebrates for someone else
Relationships: Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein
Comments: 10
Kudos: 44





	Ocean Grown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [srednia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/srednia/gifts).



> Spoilers to the end of season 3
> 
> Title is a Fleet Foxes song

One

Jean Kirstein is born on a Wednesday in Trost. Outside the house, the spring downpour turns the world to mud. 

Jean’s mother cradles him in her arms and hushes him. 

“Wednesday’s child is full of woe,” his grandmother says. 

“Stop it, Mom. Just look at him—what could he ever have to worry about?” 

Two 

On the day that Jean turns eleven, he swears he wants to live this way for the rest of his life. That day, his mother buys sweet cakes from the baker and sings to him as she sets them in front of him on the table. 

Jean’s heard the other boys in Trost talk. Some want to be scouts—some want to venture beyond Wall Maria. Why would they ever do that? There’s nothing to be found past the walls; he’s learned that much in school over and over again. Beyond the wall is a wasteland of titans. Who would ever want to go there?

That’s not to say Jean doesn’t want to join the military. He does. He’ll just move in the opposite direction. Instead of pushing out past the walls, he’ll comfortably sink deep into the interior.

Once, Jean heard Karl who lived down the road talking about how he’d visited his uncle in Sina. The streets there were lined with fine bakeries and shops. Anything a person could want, anything a person could imagine, could be found within Wall Sina. 

If he could join the Military Police, he could walk those streets every day. He’d never have to worry about what was out there, what was past the walls. He’d have a comfortable life and he’d buy sweet cakes any day he wanted. Not just on his birthday. 

Who would ever choose anything different?

Three

Jean turns fourteen and tells none of the other scouts. He grits his teeth as they finish the run; he slams Armin into the ground harder than he should at combat practice; at dinner he grabs his plate and hunkers down in the far corner, putting plenty of distance between himself and whatever Sasha and Connie are yelling about today.

Jean rips off a chunk of his bread and rolls it between his fingers before sticking it in his mouth. It’s stale on his tongue. The noise of the mess hall clatters in his ears; even the air feels dry and dusty. 

As he chews it, he imagines the future. Just over a year left in training. By his sixteenth birthday, he’ll be celebrating it at a pub in Sina with ale and meat and everything he could dream of. He’ll go to sleep in a plush bed, not in a cramped bunkhouse where he can’t escape Reiner’s snores. 

He’ll eat sweet cakes, not stale bread. 

“You look like you’re having fun,” Marco says, bursting into the spiral of Jean’s thoughts.

Jean rolls his eyes and keeps eating. 

Marco, apparently, takes the silence as an invitation to join Jean. He slides into the spot across the table from Jean, his half-eaten plate in his hands. “Eren was yelling again anyway.” He shrugs. “And you looked like you could use some company.”

“Usually,” Jean says, “people eating by themselves in the corner are doing it for a reason.”

“I know. Why do you think I’m here?” Marco looks at him, his dark eyes wide and full of candlelight. 

Jean swallows thickly; the lump of bread catches in his throat. With a cough, he stares down at his plate and tries to ignore the way his face warms. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Marco says after a moment.

“Of course I don’t,” Jean spits back. 

For the rest of dinner, the two eat in silence. 

That night, Jean lays awake in his bed. Sleep doesn’t come, even if it’s quieter than normal for the bunkhouse full of cadets. Through the window, the stars shine above the distance rows of trees he knows is there, even if they’re only a darkened mass—there is no moon tonight. Just pinpricks of light shining down. Jean pulls his blanket around his chest and rolls to his side, shifting around in place, before flopping onto his back once more.

“Jean?” The whisper cuts through the night. “Are you awake?”

“What do you think?”

From the bunk above his, Marco’s upsidedown face dips into view. His dark hair hangs in the air in strands and, like this, his freckles form different constellations than the ones Jean is used to seeing. “You know you can talk to me, right?”

Jean rolls over so that his back is to Marco’s face. He stares at the wall, as if he’d find something interesting in the old wood. “Go to sleep before Franz yells at us.”

Above him, the bunk groans and Jean hears Marco shuffle in his blanket. When Jean looks back over his shoulder, Marco’s face isn’t leaning down anymore. 

_Good,_ Jean thinks, _he’s been nosy enough today._

For a while longer, he lays there, hand curled in his blanket and eyes fixed on the wood of the bunk. Sleep doesn’t come—his head is too full of thoughts that race in circles. 

Above him, there’s no noise. No soft snores. 

“It was my birthday,” Jean says. It’s not more than a whisper. Who is he telling?

No answer comes at any rate. Marco must’ve fallen asleep. Besides, it’s probably long past midnight and not his birthday anymore, not technically. 

“Happy birthday, Jean,” Marco says softly. 

Sleep finds Jean not long after that. 

Four

“Happy birthday Jean!” 

Jean cracks his eye open. Morning sun floods his world; his face is hot and his neck sticky with sweat. “What?” he grumbles as he blocks the light with his hand.

“You’re fifteen now!” Marco says, a wide smile plastered across his face. His eyes crinkle at the corners and, despite the fact the sun’s just risen, he seems terribly cheerful and alert.

Jean sits up and wipes the sleep from the corner of his mouth on the back of his hand. A hazy dream still hangs around the edge of his mind—where had he been? There was something blue, spanning from his toes out toward the horizon. 

“Do you feel older?”

Jean stares at Marco. “You remembered,” he says, still trying to catch up. The rest of the cabin seems to be just starting to stir too. 

“Of course I did—hey, listen,” Marco says. He rests his hand on Jean’s shoulder and leans in toward his ear. “I’ve got a surprise for you, alright? I’ll show you after training today.”

Jean only nods. Words catch in his throat. Marco… 

As he shrugs on his uniform, he replays the small moment in his head, over and over and over until it wears a groove in his mind. 

He doesn’t mind it one bit. 

***

At night, when the others have fallen asleep, Marco swings down from above. “Scoot over,” he says and makes his way into the bunk next to Jean. He pulls his long legs up to his chest and gives Jean a smile. 

Jean’s heart stumbles. It catches and trips and races off again. _What?_ Jean scrambles to sit and wipes his palms against his pyjama pants. 

“Happy birthday,” Marco says. From his pocket, he pulls out a small brown bag and shoves it into Jean’s hand. 

Jean stares at it, trying to work out what it all means. 

“Well? Open it!” Marco whispers.

Jean unfoldes the crease in the top and peaks inside. In the bag are a dozen or so red drops the size of marbles. “Marco…”

“They’re cherry drops! Try one—they’re from the best store in Jinea.”

Jean reaches in the bag and pulls one out. He’s had something like it before, but it was flavoured like a lemon. 

He pops the drop in his mouth. The sweetness rushes over his tongue; he let out a strangled laugh, trying not to wake half their cabin.

“Well?” Marco looks at him, waiting. 

“Thank you,” Jean says. He pulls another cherry drop out of the bag and puts it in Marco’s hand.

Marco tries to refuse. “It’s your gift!”

“I’m guessing it was your gift first,” Jean says. 

They pass the night, side by side, eating candy and staring out the small window. At some point, the warmth of Marco’s hand covers Jean’s. 

Jean’s heart rings through his ears and head and chest. His face warms; his lungs fill. When did it get so hard to react? To breathe?

Jean swears if he was a little braver, he would’ve wrapped his fingers around Marco’s in return. 

Five 

Jean turns sixteen somewhere past the wall. He doesn’t know it at the time; only afterwards does he realize the day has come and gone. 

Plus One

Marco Bott doesn’t turn sixteen, but his birthday comes all the same. 

_Marco should’ve seen the sea,_ Jean thinks as he looks out ahead of him. Sun glints off the water and catches in his eyes. The water goes out forever to the horizon in every direction. How can something like this even exist? How could it exist and how could Marco never have gotten to know about it?

Cool water laps around Jean’s ankles. Next to him, Sasha laughs and kicks the salty water in Connie’s direction. Further down still, Armin and Eren and Mikasa are deep in some conversation. Hange has their hands deep in the dark sand, shrieking about something to Levi, who stands there as unexpressive as always. 

Jean closes his eyes and tilts his head toward the sun. Heat warms his face, but a cool breeze rolls off the water and pushes the humid heat away from his skin. Somewhere in the distance, birds call. 

In the version of this world where everything went right, Marco is here, standing next to him. Jean can see Marco clearly, throwing his hands in the air as he runs into the water _that moves_. Marco would smile. Marco wouldn’t hesitate. He’d be with everyone, dragging Sasha and Connie into the surf. 

In the version of this world that should have been, Marco would rest in the sand after swimming. The sun would bring out another layer on the map of his freckles. The salt in the water would make his hair curl ever so slightly at the edges.

If this world was how it should be, Marco would be here instead of Jean. Marco was the best. Not that Jean thought any of the scouts, any of the trainees deserved to die, but Marco truly didn’t. And, on top of everything, he definitely didn’t deserve to die alone. 

What did he think of in his final moments? Did he wonder why his team hadn’t come for him?

Jean grinds his teeth together and pushes that thought out of his head. 

The truth of it is this: he is here and Marco is not and there is nothing he can do that will change this fact. 

Even still, Jean wonders. He dreams of a world where there are here together, standing in the surf, and staring out at the edge of the world. A world where he’s handing Marco a present, where he’s wishing him a happy birthday, where he’s wrapping his fingers around Marco’s hand and returning the gesture with a heart unrestrained by fear. 

Jean sighs. He reaches down, into the sand, and lifts out a shell. He runs his finger over the ridges and sand. Maybe the world is like this—folded in on itself. 

Maybe Marco is somewhere out there, waiting for Jean. 

Jean hopes he is. 

He has so much to tell him.

**Author's Note:**

> _I will see you someday when I've woken  
>  I'll be so happy just to have spoken  
> I'll have so much to tell you about it ___


End file.
